“If you can’t play with the language, you are not reinventing the language.” This is what Argentine director Gaspar Noé told me when I interviewed him fifteen years ago about his 2009 masterpiece, “Enter the Void.” There is perhaps no filmmaker who has crafted more visceral portrayals of primal human experiences, particularly sex, violence and death. Many American audiences first became acquainted with Noé when his explicit 2015 drama, “Love,” inexplicably wound up on Netflix, galvanizing countless unsuspecting viewers. Yet I find a great deal of depth beneath the sensational aspects of Noé’s work, and the same could be said of his equally gifted partner, French auteur Lucile Hadžihalilović, whose directorial feature efforts are as close to a waking dream as anything in recent cinema.
Her new film, “The Ice Tower,” is loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about the enigmatic Snow Queen. Sublime newcomer Clara Pacini stars as Jeanne, an orphaned teen who flees from her crowded foster home, seeking refuge on a film set where an icy movie star, Cristina (Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard), is playing a formidable version of the Queen character. Fantasy starts to become indiscernible from reality, as Clara finds herself drawn to Cristina in ways that are eerie, haunting and more than a little unsettling. Winner of the Silver Bear at Berlinale, “The Ice Tower” will open in select U.S. theaters on October 3rd, and Cinema Femme was thrilled to speak with Hadžihalilović about the picture via Zoom last week.
Before we delve into “The Ice Tower,” I must ask you about “Enter the Void,” which you co-wrote with your partner Gaspar. How did you go about collaborating on the film’s visionary narrative, in which we view the action largely from the perspective of a disembodied spirit?
For that film, what I mostly worked on were ways to adapt certain aspects from The Tibetan Book of the Dead. My main job was to structure those parts of the film and find elements that were equivalent to what was in the text. The rest of the movie all came from Gaspar.
That movie truly does give audiences an “ultimate trip” akin to the one in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which I understand is among your and Gaspar’s favorite films.
That was absolutely the desire of Gaspar as a filmmaker. “2001” was such a shock to him when he first discovered it around the age of 3 or 4. Since then, he has seen it so many times.
Your masterful 2004 debut feature, “Innocence,” has one of my all-time favorite closing sequences, in which a girl glimpses a boy in between soaring geysers of water. I was reminded of that moment in “The Ice Tower,” when Jeanne and Cristina look at one another in between huge icicles.
Yeah, you’re right! It is mirroring that moment a bit. [laughs]
What attracts you to making different forms of water an essential part of your cinematic canvas?
First of all, I think that water is very cinematic. It can have different shapes—it could be frozen, it could be a fountain, a waterfall, a lake, raindrops, and so on. It can be both real and very physical, but at the same time, it can be totally abstract. I am probably attracted to abstraction. [laughs] In this case, I wanted to evoke a certain strength or stillness in nature. There are so many ways you can play with this element of water. You can touch it, penetrate it and be inside of it.
Marion Cotillard has mentioned in interviews how she loved the way you transformed Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale by having a camera lens in place of its magic mirror.
In the Andersen story, there’s a beautiful image of a mirror made by the devil, which reflects the world in a distorted way. When the mirror breaks, pieces of it fall into the eyes and hearts of people. I came up with the idea of having cinema screens and lenses take the place of the mirror, which inspired me to have a film within the film.
In one scene, I spotted the poster of a film you’ve cited as one of your favorites, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s “The Red Shoes.” Did that picture serve as an influence for the way in which you depicted the Snow Queen’s fantastical landscape?
As a matter of fact, Powell and Pressburger’s films, in general, were an inspiration for us. We had thought more specifically about “Black Narcissus,” because it’s set in the mountains and there are scenes where characters are perched on the precipice of a cliff. That film was all shot in a studio and utilized a painted landscape, which is what we tried to do in this film. I included that nod to “The Red Shoes” because I love the poster, but there is also a meaning to it. Though it doesn’t have a film within a film like ours does, there is a ballet sequence in the theater where the artificial world appears to be more exciting than the real one. And the ballet is portraying the tale of “The Red Shoes,” which is also by Hans Christian Andersen.
I recall there being a pair of red shoes in the original Snow Queen fairy tale as well.
Yeah, there is a moment where the young heroine gives her shoes to the river because she is trying to find the boy who has been kidnapped by the Snow Queen. That is the plot of the original story, whereas mine is about an encounter between the girl and the Snow Queen.
It was great to see you and Marion working together again after your previous collaboration on “Innocence.” What made you want to cast her in this role?
I think she was the perfect person to embody Cristina as well as the Queen because she is so beautiful. She is like a feminine ideal, but at the same time, she is complex. I don’t know her so much as a person, but she can be very classical in her appearance and very modern in the way she acts. I like that combination. I knew that she could be distant and cold, but I hadn’t seen her be scary very much onscreen, and I thought that would be an interesting thing for her to play. There are moments in the film where she is quite scary because you’re not sure what she is thinking. She is very subtle, and also has this status as a star both in France and internationally. There isn’t anyone like her in France, so she was the perfect person to play this dual role. Without saying much or doing much, she really beings a lot of different emotions to each scene.
One quality all of your films share is extraordinary performances from young actors who never once appear to be acting—in this case, Clara Pacini as Jeanne. How do you approach working with young people?
I guess I mainly direct adults and actors like I direct children. [laughs]. It’s the other way around because I’ve had so many children on my sets. I try not to cast children who have already acted because I think that makes them a bit too mechanical. Clara was different. She had never been in a feature before, but she was older, so if she had already acted onscreen, it would not have been a problem. What I’m interested in is filming the person and somehow getting a performance in quite a subtle way. With children, I try not to give them too many lines. They simply need to stay within the frame of the camera, and then I give them a few things to do. Sometimes I show them what to do through the use of games and things like that.
Clara was different because she is an adult, but she looks younger, and I found her to be very subtle. I also loved the fact that she seems to have a real inner life. I knew that she wasn’t going to say or do much—she is mainly looking at things along with the audience—and she has amazing eyes. She is very graceful but also exudes a strength in how she walks. You can see how tall she is in her silhouette, and I thought she was already Jeanne without doing much. The type of person she is totally fit with the character.
How did you create a safe environment for Clara when filming disturbing scenes, and was it important for her and Marion to establish a relationship beforehand?
Of course. Again, Clara is an adult, but nevertheless, she is still a very young actress, and so it was interesting to see her paired with a big star, because it reflected their dynamic in the film. Of course, Marion is nothing like Cristina in reality. She is very generous and was very helpful. It was easy for Clara to work with Marion. We just had one meeting with the two of them before shooting. Marion invited Clara to her house, and I was there too. It was funny because it happened on a day where it was snowing in Paris, and Clara came in a taxi with a chauffeur. So it really felt like she was arriving at the Queen’s ice castle. Marion later told me that she was a bit afraid that Clara would be too young or too fragile, considering what they were going to have to do in the film. But once she met Clara, she was relieved because she saw the strength in her.
We began the shoot by filming scenes that were quite easy for Clara, and waited until the end of it to film her final scene with Marion. Of course, I asked Clara to tell me what was acceptable to her for the scene so that it was very precise. She specified where she could be touched—with protection, of course—and the kiss between their characters was no problem for her, though it was still very strange. These are things we talked about a lot. We had an intimacy coordinator, which is a good thing to have, though the person was there more in case someone felt unsafe. But the scene turned out to be so easy and simple for Marion and Clara, and there was a comfort between them. If anything, Clara was afraid that she was going to hurt Marion when she pushes her. Clara is doing a lot of judo, and is a black belt, so it was nice that she was so concerned.
What inspired you to cast Gaspar as the director? I almost didn’t recognize him in that wig!
I thought it would be fun to have a real director for that part. Michael Powell and Mario Bava are dead, so I thought maybe Guillermo del Toro could do it. I felt it should be someone who would have done this type of film, but it would’ve been complicated to have Guillermo in the role. It was too many shooting days and his character really has nothing to do. So I thought, ‘Why not Gaspar?’, since he physically resembles a type of Italian director from the 70s. I felt he could take care of himself and play the role well, even though his character is nothing like himself. It was very simple and pleasant and fun to have him on set for those moments. He was also very happy to have the wig. [laughs]
“The Ice Tower” will have a limited release on Friday, October 3rd, in U.S. theaters.
